God help us if this scary woman (and her husband) returns to the White House

The Daily Mail ^ | 10th November 2006 | Ann Leslie

[Mrs Ivan]

The total rout of George Bush's Republicans was completed yesterday when the last Senate vote to be counted in America's midterm elections gave victory to the Democrats in Virginia.

The result gave the Democrats an effective 51-49 majority to add to a landslide win in the House of Representatives and presented Bush with the prospect of being a lame-duck President for his final two years in power.

After years of ignoring his political opponents, it was a time for fence-mending yesterday as the President invited Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi to a White House lunch to discuss how they might work together and, crucially, solve the crisis in Iraq.

With the 66-year-old mother-of-five now holding power on Capitol Hill, Mrs Pelosi met a once antagonistic President whom she has variously described as 'dangerous', 'in denial' and 'an emperor with no clothes'.

The humbled President admitted he was 'open to any idea' which might help him end the unpopular war. After the lunch, he congratulated Mrs Pelosi on becoming America's first female House Speaker.

For her part, she said she was looking forward to a series of 'confidence-building' meetings with Bush, adding: 'We are extending the hand of friendship.' But as the Mail reports here, another woman holds the real key to America's future...

An old anti-Clinton joke is doing the rounds again: 'If Clinton were the Titanic, it would have been the iceberg which sank.' Only this time it's being applied to his wife.

As someone who's been on the campaign trial with them both over the years, I've been constantly amazed at the utter unsinkability of the Clintons.

I would often wonder just how many more financial scandals the pair could survive — White-watergate, Futuresgate, Chickengate, Travelgate, Filegate — which always involved her. And sexual scandals, such as the Monica Lewinsky affair, which always involved him.

By the time he relinquished his presidency, Bill had been impeached, and then compounded his sins by granting presidential pardons to assorted criminal cronies.

The day he left office, I wrote: 'It seems almost unbelievable that the greatest political soap opera of the century is over — as its star, Big Bubba Bill, waddles off the political stage, grinning, biting his lip, twinkling his seductive smile, allowing a sentimental tear to fall from his eyes, knowing full well that he's still a winner.

'If the Constitution allowed it, the majority of Americans say they would vote for him again.'

Well, the soap opera ain't over yet. Hillary Clinton has just won a landslide in the mid-term elections and kept her Senate seat. The band played 'You ain't seen nothin' yet!' and Bill was celebrating alongside his fierce, ecstatic, yellow-suited wife.

Everyone knows she'll be running for President in 2008. As Dick Morris, Bill's former campaign adviser and now an implacable foe of the couple, put it: 'The order of succession to the presidency in this poor benighted country may well be Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton.'

She's already jokingly told friends that Bill, who used to refer to himself as 'The Comeback Kid', will be called 'The First Mate'.

The thought of the Clinton duo back in the White House fills many with utter gloom. 'Hillary's smile could curdle embalming fluid.' 'If elephants can do without ankles, why not Hillary?' 'Don't let the Wicked Witch back into the White House!'

SHE always intended to become President — only her gender stood in the way. So she married a good ole Suth'n boy, oozing with charm, whom she met at law school. No one could see what he saw in her. 'Hell, she was ugly — and frankly, looked dirty,' said a fellow law student. 'And not dirty in a sexy way — just dirty!'

A Left-wing feminist, Hillary had greasy, unkempt hair, bottle-lensed glasses and wore charity-shop clothes. But they both recognised in each other a fierce political ambition which would eventually propel them into power.

Bill had grown up with a poor, dysfunctional family, but as an eight-year-old, he told his primary school teacher that if he'd been in charge of the Roman Empire, it would never have fallen. And that he was going to become, first, Governor of Arkansas, and then President.

And Hillary always intended that his presidency would be a joint one: 'Buy one, get one free!'

When her husband first ran for the presidency, she told her close friend Linda Bloodworth-Thomason that the couple's dream was 'Eight years of Bill, eight years of Hill!'

According to Dick Morris, Bill has always been frightened of Hillary and many of his 'scrapes' were compounded by terror of his wife's fury.

Her former business partner, Susan MacDougal, who ended up in jail (and was pardoned by Bill), said: 'Hillary is one of the most focused, most driven, most goal-oriented women I have ever met. I mean, she is a scary woman!'

One of their former advisers told me: 'Bill's always had the character of tapioca, no real ideology, nothing but a general neediness to be loved and huge amounts of charisma. He was always indecisive and undisciplined, but she never was. She's not needy, she's highly ideological, highly liberal, highly focused, and she's always provided the backbone for him.'

I interviewed members of her White House staff who, off the record, spoke of the pair's volcanic rages (and her often foul mouth).

'No one is scared of him, but everyone's scared of her. He has a terrible temper, screams and shouts, and there are bodies all over the floor — but then the sun comes out, and the storm is over.

'She has a much slower fuse, but she's much more dangerous: she's very cold, very scathing, and doesn't forget, so you don't know when she'll get the knives out for you. In that way, she's much more difficult to deal with.'

Ruthlessly unsentimental, it was Hillary who, when reading a speech before delivery, would crisply inform Bill: 'We don't want to throw around words like "love".'

Hillary disliked the mawkishness, the touchy-feely empathising that he's always revelled in.

I was told by Carl Sforazza Anthony, an historian who likes her and admires her unswerving self-belief: 'Her attitude always is, never mind the torpedoes — full steam ahead!'

The woman we saw on television after this week's Senate win bears no resemblance to the 'ugly' woman law student Bill married. She once cared so little about clothes that she forgot to get a wedding dress and her mother had to rush round to a department store to buy one for her.

Hillary is now coiffed, heavily-Botoxed, well-dressed, and looks far younger than she is. But as Camille Paglia, author of Sex, Art And American Culture, points out: 'There is a bleached, sanitised, de-sexed, de-sensualised quality to Hillary's persona.'

There's little doubt that she will win the Democratic nomination for President. She has a massive war chest, a good reputation for hard work in the Senate, and has campaigned for other Democrats in their elections. They now owe her favours. But will she become the first woman President?

She was, at one time, the most hated — and divisive — woman in America. But she's learnt from her mistakes, and in her 'highly focused' way has moved firmly towards the centre; in New York state, she even won in deeply Republican wards.

The woman who began her joint-presidential career despising the military (soldiers who went to the White House complained that she 'treated us like dirt on her shoe') now praises them fulsomely, and she voted for war in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

She stresses her devotion to God (no godless candidate could ever hope to win office in America) and her deep patriotism. And, so far, it seems to be working.

And what of Bill? After all, he once told Dick Morris that he wanted to divorce her. Many times she would have been forgiven for wanting to divorce him. But she never had any intention of letting Bill get away from her: she'd invested too much in his career. And it's said that she still, despite everything, loves him deeply.

Yet they are rarely seen together in public and lead virtually separate lives. Bill's life involves earning huge amounts of money on lecture tours, travelling the world for pet causes and — unfortunately — yet more Good Ole Suth'n boy philandering. She once ruefully said of him: 'It's hard to keep this dog on the porch!'

She knows that he comes with baggage and, once she declares that she's running for President, all the old scandals will be dredged up again (and possibly new ones still to come). Just as she has distanced herself from the Left, so she has also distanced herself from her husband and his chronic misbehaviour.

Only when — and if (it's a big if) — she becomes President will we know whether this is the restoration of the 'Billary' presidency.

'Buy one again, and you get one free... again.'

[Cincinna]

Definitely merits a BARF alert and a WARNING! sign. If we don't come together and support our candidate, Hillary and her HINO will rule from the Oval Office once again.

[Watery Tart]

And this time I mean it!

And this time I mean it!

And this time I mean it!

[Cincinna]

Definitely merits a BARF alert and a WARNING! sign. If we don't come together and support our candidate, Hillary and her HINO will rule from the Oval Office once again.

[Cincinna]

Hillary won 66.6% (scary, isn't it?)of the vote in the bluest of states. She did not do as well as Eliot Spitzer,72% or Chuck Schumer last time around 73%.